bodies in trump world is about to start drawing a road map of his own misdeeds on behalf of donald trump. michael cohen, the president's former lawyer and fixer, will be on capitol hill tomorrow in advance of public testimony expected to cover explosive territory. cohen is the one who implicated donald trump in an ee mel hush money scheme that resulted in new york prosecutors giving trump the nickname of his own, individual one. individual one will be the topic of much of cohen's closed and open testimony this week. lawmakers say they plan to grill cohen on a host of trump-related subjects including trump business practices, trump foundation, trump compliance with tax laws, hush money payments to women, truthfulness of public statements and questions of whether trump attempted to intimidate cohen as a witness. "the new york times" said another new michael cohen development sure to rattle the president as he heads to a high-stakes nuclear summit the white house hopes will drakt

from cohen's testimony this week. "the times" writes -- and that's where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends, "the new york times" chief white house competent peter baker and with us at the table jeremy bash, former chief of staff at the cia and pentagon. betsy woodruff, daily beast political reporter. former democratic congresswoman donna edwards and matt miller is back, former chiefs spokesman at

the department of justice. jeremy bash, let me start with you. this testimony this week is interesting because michael cohen is sort of the a rogue's rogue. but it's more interesting because of the way donald trump reacts every single time cohen's in the news, whether it's news that cohen's offices were raided that he described as an attack on the nation, news cohen was cooperating with the federal government, which a normal president would be cheered by because he runs the federal government, he called him a rat, gave an interview he bemoaned the existence of rats and now headed to capitol hill to testify. >> unlike paul manafort and mike flynn and others who have pled guilty, no one can argue that michael cohen, hey, we hardly knew you. hey, you don't really know your facts here. he served for many years as chief con sig leary, chief lawyer -- i will put that in quotes because i'm not sure how much law they were upholding or following, chief business fixer for donald trump and the trump organization.

when michael cohen talks, it comes with a certain level of authority. and i think donald trump fundamentally knows that. if i were the chairman of the committee, i basically lean back and say, mr. cohen, have you seen any shady business at the trump organization? and let the guy talk. >> the president's friends said since cohen became a household name for those of us who covered this president, this was the guy, it wasn't mueller who kept trump up at night. it may now be. but at the time cohen eef's off were raided, people closest to the president said this is the guy, this is the guy who did the dirty, embarrassing stuff that really gets under the president's skin. >> that's right. it's been clear ever since the genesis of the mueller investigation the biggest concern for trump himself and for the people in his immediate orbit has always been about money. the mueller investigation really started getting under zhirn w t mueller brought on agents from the criminal investigations section who were there to crunch

the numbers and dig on this financial issue and michael cohen, more than perhaps anyone, we know to be in touch with his investigators, perhaps all alan wisenberg would be in there too. but michael cohen really has an extraordinary level of visibility into the finances of the trump organization. that's what trump has always treated as sack row safrpgt. let's not forget, we still haven't seen his tax returns. this money stuff is important to him and if cohen has new information, that's potentially where he can cause the most trouble for the president. >> peter, let me read a report from your colleagues over the weekend. quote, mr. cohen who worked at the trump organization for a decade spoke about the prosecutors about insurance claims the company filed over the years, said the people who did not elaborate on the naeft of the possible irregularities. while it was not clear whether the prosecutors found mr. cohen's information credible and whether they intended to pursue it, the meetings suggest they are interested in broader aspects of the trump

organization. beyond their investigation into the company's role and hush money payments made before the election to women claiming to have affairs with mr. trump. peter, there's this notion out there what the southern district of new york did was investigate the hush money scheme, and they basically named donald trump, and your byline is on a great story that came out the weekend after the cohen sentencing memo told us the most information we had that basically the southern district of new york, the federal government sponsored the cohen testimony, either they corroborated it or they accepted it, and named the president as an unindicted co-conspirator. this reporting from your colleagues over the weekend suggests the hush money scheme is just one bucket to borrow one of the ways we look at the cohen -- or the mueller investigation, that there are other buckets, the inaugural committee, perhaps tax fraud. people people, lawyers talk about a rico prosecution. what does this reporting tell us about what the southern district

of new york is still pursuing? >> you just read, we don't know how prosecutors reacted to this information or how intensely they're interested in it but the fact is there are so many different strands that investigators are pulling on, whether it be as you point out the inaugural issue, the business. i would say there's a reason why the president is so eager not having his private business looked at from the first place when maggie abraham and mike schmidt and i went to see him in july 2017, we asked him if it would be a red line if robert mueller looked in his business other than relationships to russia and he said yes, it

would. this isn't robert mueller but it is federal investigators but you can see this make him very uncomfortable. we don't know why but nobody's very happy having investigators look through their business no matter what, but it does tell you that the issues on the table from this president are wide ranging. >> this story revoleals how troubled the president is, he wanted matt whitaker to oversee these investigations, not career prosecutors. what do you make about this line of questioning we learned about it in "the times" reporting over the weekend? >> i read it the reason why the president so worried about michael cohen, not because of how long he worked to it, but he really was involved in every aspect of his life. he was involved in the business and campaign, transition and

inaugural. >> he was in the bedroom if you will. >> that's right. he was in the white house talking about his testimony before he went up and gave a statement to congress. he had exposure to every -- to all of the investigations that the trump organization, campaign, white house are all exposed to. and he doesn't just put the president in jeopardy but he puts the president's family members in jeopardy. one of the big questions we will hear asked, i don't know if he will answer it, who is executive to? who is the trump organization executive that approved the illegal payment. we know it wasn't the president, it's after the president left. it's thought to be his son donald jr. or eric trump. so michael cohen is the key who unlocks all kinds of doors this into the trump world. that's why you see the president react so angrily every time he comes into public view. >> and this is from michael cohen's guilty plea. he said, i made these misstatements. i think what we can expect all week long on another network is accusations that he's a liar. and he was convicted of lying to

congress. but at this point the only thing that shortens his prison sentence is telling the truth. but this is what he said about those lies -- i made these misstatements to be consistent with trump's political messaging and out of loyalty to the president. so people are going to see this week a man who has already confessed to the lies he told and offered an explanation, that he did so on behalf of the president out of, in his words, misguided loyalty to the president. but to jeremy's point, he is also packing all sorts of evidence that will -- i don't know how it plays in the court of law but in the court of public opinion, which really at this point seems to be what drives this president, we heard from michael cohen's recordings the president's own words sort of master minding the hush money scheme and bringing in the nation in the "national enquirer." what do you think this week will mean for the pull, watching this thing going what am i looking

at? >> i think a lot of that depends on how michael cohen comports himself. i think it's going to be really important given that we know he's a liar. the public draws from that. yes, he lied, but now it turns out that he's really telling the truth. i think that his thendemeanor w play heavily into the way the public values his testimony. for the president, michael cohen knows where all of the bodies are buried because he buried them. and he's going to be able to testify from firsthand experience with the president about how he was directed about the times that the president directed him or not. some of that may go to some of these underlying investigations but it's going to show the involvement that the president has had in every single detail of his business and his campaign. i think that's going to be damning for the president and for congress. i always thought members of congress should not say we're going to wait for the mueller

report before we decide to proceed in other areas, whether it's impeachment or other investigation. it may turn out these details that michael cohen is providing actually provide a basis by which one might say that this president is unfit and unqualified to be in the white house. >> it's a great point. and peter's colleagues and you and everyone covering this ha z always reported the giuliani strategy hinged on one thing, volume. they need to do a volume business of crisis, of cover-up, of characters. this will be one man and one story that, as i said, peter baker wrote as clearly as anybody the weekend after the cohen sentencing memo came out, basically the southern district of new york sponsored the information that donald trump ran a cover-up scheme that impacted the election. got pretty clear allegation of campaign finance violations. >> and i hope i think for the credibility of michael cohen but

also for the country's sake, that the focus isn't necessarily on women and hush money payments. because while that may have been violations of campaign finance laws and that's a very serious matter, i actually think the much more serious issue is michael cohen knows and understands exactly the way the trump organization accessed cash. by that i mean he had to oversee signing of bank documents, signing of financial documents that would allow the trump organization to borrow money. if you think about the russia story at large, it's really about the trump organization's desperate need for cash and the fact they had to go to the russian federation for cash. while he won't be able to possibly talk about the russian angle during this week's public testimony, that aspect sets the template for the broader national interest question at heart. >> one other really important question for michael cohen that i imagine the members of congress will ask is how much documentation he has to back up the claims that he makes. we know he secretly recorded phone conversations with people, including donald trump. any lawyer knows that it's

important to have documents and communications substantiate claims that you're making. it sounds like it's possible michael cohen was a little bit of a pack rat. if that's true, that can be potentially pivotal. >> peter baker, if you can jump in here and sort of pull the thread forward. you cover this white house. you cover this president. he can be anywhere in the world. he can be -- when he made that comment about the cohen raids being an attack on the nation, i believe he was sitting shoulder to shoulder with his entire security cabinet talking about if it wasn't north korea, it was something equally dire. he will be nothing less than a nuclear summit this week. you get the sense through your reporting his eyes and ears will be back on events here in washington? >> you can count on that. of course he's not going to suddenly give up his phone and twitter account, even though he's overseas. but the time difference might make it a little bit hard to respond in realtime. 12 hours difference. will he have spent all day on wednesday either getting ready

for or having this meeting with kim jong-un, the north korean leader. as you say, it's about nuclear disarmament, hardly a more serious topic could be thought of. but he will no doubt turn on the television 10:00 at night his time when michael cohen takes the seat at the house committee. he's made very clear that he thinks michael cohen is as you reported a rat, that he's questioned his credibility, he's pointed out michael cohen has been convicted of lying. he sungted that michael cohen's father-in-law should be investigated. some people talked about whether or not this constitutes witness tampering or not. no question cohen bugs him. that's something that is under his skin, somebody who had been close to him for so long who may or may not know about all sorts of things. we don't know yet. we will hope we find out more. it's something the president is taking very seriously and he's very sensitive about. >> he is sensitive and tweets no

collusion every day. here's what the tribe tweeted over the weekend -- the very fact mueller said keen can't talk about trump's campaign's collusion with russia when the testifying to the three congressional committees next week means he will testify about collusion. we will talk about this when we get into the manafort sentencing memo, what we saw that there's still an effort to protect ongoing investigations and evidence. >> i think if professor tribe is right, that's a very important point. it's not clear to me whether he's not allowed to testify about russia because mueller asked him not to or if adam schiff asked him not to, to protect his investigation, which is on a separate tract. i think just as importantly will the southern district of new york allow him to ask very important questions about hush money payments? he will be asked but can he talk about them publicly? and to follow up a point donna made, congress has a separate responsibility from the department of justice. we heard very clearly from the department of justice they can't

indict a sitting president. that means it is the congress of the united states that polices presidential misbehavior. that means need to get the answers to the questions from michael cohen. i'm not sure the time that -- we're not past the time they should be sitting around waiting for the department of justice to act. i think it's about time to congress to start not just deferring to doj. they should actively interfere with a criminal investigation, they should work to make sure they don't but sit around and wait for doj to finish. >> i keep bringing up this point and peter baker's reporting at the time, because at the time a former republican prosecutor said to me if the congress asked for the findings of sdny around this case, around cohen's sentencing, they could probably have access to them. if they wanted to deal -- and whatever happens with mueller, one thing is trul, the president is accused of felony campaign finance violations. he's an unindicted cospirit

co-conspirator to defraud the voters. the headline was trump elected to defraud voters. why don't they look at that issue and one foot inp pr front the other? >> i hope they do. there's a very important question michael cohen knows the answer to, when the president ordered you to the hush money scheme, did he know it was illegal? maybe the southern district of new york wouldn't want that answered publicly because it may hurt the rest of their investigation because of plea negotiations with maybe one of the trump kids. but they need to know whether the please committed a crime or not because if so they have the responsibility to consider whether to impeach him and bring him to the senate for conviction. they may decide not to do that but they have the responsibility to ask the question. >> it's never boring. peter baker, thank you for your reporting, recent reporting and all that we draw on for these conversations. we're grateful to have you. after the break, a new twist for

special counsel robert mueller. top democrat able to subpoena his report and call on him to testify? the brewing legal battle. also ahead, big-time angst from donald trump's closest adviser about the north korea's summit and the length the president may go to distract from troubles at home. >> and donald trump, who stands credibly accused of racism, projects accusations of racism on an award winner who called for more love. we'll take you inside trump's latest attack. latest attack.fir? (man) road trip. (woman) yes. (woman) off-road trip. (couple) [laughter] (couple vo) whoa! (man) how hot is the diablo chili? (waitress) well. you've got to sign a waiver. [laughter] (ranger) you folks need bear repellent? (woman) ah, we're good. (man) yes. (vo) it's a big world. our new forester just made it even bigger. (woman) so what should we do second? (vo) the 2019 subaru forester. the most adventurous forester ever. but how do i know if i'm i'm getting a good deal? i tell truecar my zip

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don't? what if they say no, we will not release the underlying evidence. what options do you have? >> we will subpoena the report. we will bring in bob mueller to testify before congress. we will take it to court if necessary. in the end i think the department understands they're going to have to make this public. >> prepared to take the administration to court? >> absolutely. we are going to get to the bottom of this. we're going to share this information with the public, and if the president is serious about all of his claims of exoneration, then he should welcome the publication of this report. >> but he won't. the impending end of robert mueller's investigation may be just the beginning of the legal battle between democratic lawmakers and the trump administration over what potentially incriminating evidence should be made public in the russia probe. that looming showdown combined with the possibility that mueller will spin off untold federal investigations that could threaten the president and his family, make up a new legal and political reality not locked on donald trump. and according to a fresh report

from the daily beast, quote, donald trump signaled to his inner circle even he knows special counsel robert mueller finishing his investigation will be a new beginning, not a dramatic end for trump world's eclectic legal health scape. it includes rudy giuliani, he didn't want his lawyers going anywhere, even after the mueller probe ends. the conversation served as a private admission that federal investigations bedevilling his first term in office will be haunting him for possibly years to come. table is back. betsy, i understand his chief motivation for running for re-election is to avoid possible indictment and legal jeopardy. >> there's no question the president is very much aware of the doj rule that if your president, you're not going to be indicted. >> the doj. >> there's no question he knows about that. there's been probably zero question from the white house for doj to revisit that. that said, of course, the president likes being powerful

and there are a whole cornucopia of issues he's excited about potentially if he's re-elected. the fact he's encouraging rudy giuliani and jay sec ulio to stay on is telling. he's beefing up the white house counsel staff, preparing for the scrutiny from congress to amp up. it was a little striking to me chairman schiff was the one talking about subpoenaing the mueller report on the sunday shows when jerry nadler, the chairman of the house judiciary committee said the same thing, his committee would also potentially be subpoenaing that report. there will be something of potentially internal little tension among house democrats as they're figuring out who is the first panel to get eyes on the most anticipated federal document produced this century. >> i'm guessing all three of us have been through an exercise on behalf of the executive branch of government, working on declassification and running a process with national security agencies to get -- in my case it

was the pdb before 9/11 warning bush that bin laden sought to strike on u.s. soil using airplanes. and it was a precedent. the bottom line is the gravitational pull is almost always towards disclosure. >> that's right. when you have an independent commission in that case or congressional review in that case but in general i worked on the house intelligence committee and we fought with doj all the time. at the end of the day congress ultimately has the power to hold up funding, to hold up nominees and to make life hell for an executive branch agency that does not disclose things that the congress believes is in the interest of the american people. >> particularly when you -- in our instance, there was a public -- not just outcry, public cry to understand what the government knew about this horrific tragedy. this is not 9/11 but the public interest in knowing what was learned by robert mueller's

two-year investigation is pretty intense. >> i can hardly think of a matter that's more of national interest and national import than how a foreign adversary has leverage over american foreign policy. >> yeah, that's absolutely right. get to the end of this, the law is not on doj's side and the politics are not on doj's side. we look at polls, somewhere 90% of the american public want the mueller report to be released. obviously doj set a precedent in recent years turning over information about the clinton investigation to congress. in this investigation, they turned over thousands of pages of information when the president thought it would be to his advantage to turn thoefrm to congress. the idea they would then turn around and say we turned over the fisa application, we turned over all of these other documents we thought would hurt the investigation. now we will sit on the report that shows the outcome of the investigation is untenable. if you look at some of the privilege claims they might make, congress will often go to court to litigate them. they almost always get settled with the executive branch turning over the document that's

congress wants. >> it's such a good point. the minute they stand up and say we can't turn this over, over christopher wray, the president's handpicked fbi director's objections, they turn over deficit devin nunez wanted to bang around at fox news and elsewhere about a fisa application, sort of the most sacred l sacred classified information. >> that is right. you have quotes from republicans in congress talking about how important transparency is. you have the president himself demanding transparency from the justice department and they're going to turn around now and say we shouldn't be transparent? not to mention the fact when the clinton investigation ended, within three months of that investigation being done, not only had the fbi director had a press conference and testified, but they turned over every fbi 302, the notes fbi agents make about interviews. so congress has almost the entire underlying file about a candidate for president, in the middle of a presidential campaign, someone who's a private citizen, let alone the president of the united states.

i don't see how they keep the report from congress, let alone the evidence mueller collected. >> doubleheader for you, this question of whether adam schiff and chairman nadler will be successful but also the manafort filing really striking for what was kept out of public view more than what was revealed he was a lifelong criminal. i think that complicates, but maybe that's just me, the pardon process for donald trump. this was someone who engaged in a decades-long criminal conspiracy. the manafort news coupled with the push from the democrats' plea, the democratic party squarely on the side about answers from a known adversary, russia. terrible politics, terrible optics for the gop. >> it is. i think right now what i saw over the weekend was chairman schiff, chairman nadler basically not intentionally but really sending a message to the administration that that report is going to come forward, that congress has a responsibility to figure out what happened in the

last election and to hold russia accountable for what they're doing currently in this election. we have barely even talked about that to scratch that surface but i think what is going to happen here is that the reports are going to come forward. it's just a matter of how. is it going to come forward because the attorney general releases it as he should, or is it going to come forward because the funding is being held for the agencies or nominees are being held up, or because there's a court fight? either way, the public is going to see this report and the public deserves to see it after the investment in this investigation and what's been at stake in terms of our elections. this is owed to the public, and i think it's going to come forward. >> your thought, betsy? the last word on the manafort, what we didn't learn in all of those redactions, since there is protecting of information, some individuals perhaps, your thoughts. >> what i'm curious about is who manafort is more frightened off

than the entire executive branch of the federal government. it was extraordinary just reading the litany of everyone single entity that he lied to. that's not a mistake. that's on purpose. people lie like that because they're scared. >> what a life of thuggery. it was just sweeping. and if trump pardons him, the ads write themselves. this guy deserve a pardon? unbelievable. after the break, donald trump moonlighting as a publicist for north korea's murdering dictator's business. that's real and next. and next

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risk of the american people. it's the mission of secretary of state and president of the united states to keep the american people secure. we're aiming to achieve that. >> that's just a direct quote. >> it's just a direct quote. from a tweet from the president, just days after his first summit with north korean dictator kim jong-un and now as he makes his way to hanoi, vietnam, the leader's second summit, his advisers are worried about what will come from the meeting. nbc news reports today, quote, senior u.s. officials and north korea efforts are expressing mounting concerns trump will give away more than gets in return. it seems they may have reason to be alarmed. the associated press reports today, quote, russian foreign minister sergei lavrov said the u.s. asked moscow's advice in dealing with north korea before a summit. lavrov, who's also visiting vietnam this week, said russia believes the u.s. ought to offer pyongyang security guarantees for this armament deal to

succeed. joining us on set is stephanie cutter, deputy campaign manager for president obama's 2012 run and jason johnson, politics editor for the roots. one of the most bizarre thing for covering trump is you have to keep an eye on russian state media because often you find out about u.s./russia qualifications there. here we checking the box and checking in with russia before we head to a nuclear summit. you can't make it up. >> no, you can't. we all have to learn russian, i guess. >> that's no. i don't know how to say yes. . >> it just reminded me of the reports that we heard that putin was assuring president trump that there were no hidden missiles in north korea and he was believing them over his own intelligence. there's a long history here of the president fighting with russia over his own intelligence agencies. >> you advised the president, we have all been advisers, and

there's angst before a high-stakes summit when your boss hasn't met five times with an american adversary and destroyed the notes and the evidence. i guess as a staffer, i have a little bit of sympathy for their angst, but come on, there's nothing new. and maybe they should have thought about it before they strapped him into a seat on air force one and sent him over there again. >> let's look at the facts, nicolle, after the singapore summit, north korea had been 60 nuclear weapons worth of nuclear material. they tested a nuclear weapon six times. to be conservative, they had about 20 nuclear weapons. how many have they destroyed since singapore? zero. the president is 0 for 20, by conservative estimate in getting rid of the real threat from nuclear weapons from north korea. so he goes into the summit and we would think under normal circumstances therefore that means the bar should be raised. we should be tougher on kim jong-un. we should drive a harder

bargain. what reez litt what is really worrying john bolton and experts is the president will cave further, he will be more eager to please, more interested in the bromance and embrace and pageantry and america will get a much worse deal. >> i want to get to the ridiculousness of his tweet and north korean beaches. but one of the most serious things going on right now is his divide with the intelligence community and this is where it matters. this is why it matters, that he doesn't believe gina has kill and dan coats. he's going to sit there and either believes the russians who gave him advise or murderous thugs sitting across from him. >> the intelligence community assessment, as articulated in front of the intelligence committee last month on camera, the president they they were misquoted, how could they have been misquoted? we all heard what they said, but it's unlikely north korea will give up their wmd capabilities.

and in spite of that assessment, in spite of that warning public and private to the president, the president is saying no, they're doing it. they're giving it up. in some ways the president is trying to speak his own reality. like he's doing with the wall. the wall is being built. no, it's not. they're giving up their nuclear weapons. no, they're not. in both cases to be so naive and to be so false about the facts. >> simply dangerous to dangerous and ludicrous, this is the president talking about the economic opportunities in north korea. >> they have great beaches. you see that whenever they are exploding their cannons into the ocean, right? i said look at that, wouldn't that make a great condo? explain this instead of doing that, could you have the best tholes in the world right there. think of it from a real estate perspective. you have south korea, you have china and they own the land in the middle. how bad is that, right? it's great. >> jeremy was here the first time i saw that, i couldn't get my jaw off the table for the rest of the hour basically

talking about turning north korea into boca. but that's how he thinks. that should keep everyone up at night. >> it should. the really disturbing thing, nicolle, about this president is apparently all we need is a firestick so we can watch fox and russian intelligence and we know everything he thinks about. that and reruns of "the apprentice." all he cares about is what the russians feel about him, fox news and where he can make a buck. it may work for him and jared and don jr. t. does not work for the entire united states of america or south koreans or our soldiers who are there sitting on pins and needles right now because they don't know if he's going to magically declare they will be gone in six months because kim jong-un offers him something. the real concern i have, i pointed out all along the president's belligerence has helped north and south korea come closer to peace, but the problem is his behavior as a whole has left everyone terrified. everyone concerned as to what the future might bring.

the president gets left at a poker table because he doesn't negotiate to save his life. when we don't have translators we can trust or notes we can trust, we have no idea what he may declare. we have no idea what we share to kim jong-un in his meeting let alone promises that come up afterwards. >> i remember covering the singapore summit and these are two known liars in a room alone together. how will we know what happened? i have a question for you about secretary mattis. he left, we don't know if he was terrified but concerned enough about what happened to our kurdish allies, he quit over the president's dangerous decision about syria policy. the coverage leading up to this is so much trepidation among the president's own cabinet. do you think we're heading towards something that either terrifies or concerns his own cabinet in north korea? >> we may but we may not actually know. i mean -- >> you're right. they may not know. >> i think what bothers me about this among other things is, one, there's no preparation. and so even if he were to make a

big assumption that north korea is prepared to begin a process of denuclearization, which is a big assumption, there's no pathway to do that. compare that with president obama and iran and the iran nuclear deal, that this is administration threw out, before the deal was even inked, inspectors were on the ground. there was a whole lot of groundwork laid to determine what the iranians had and none of that has been done for north korea. that's the problem, and this president is dangerous in a room with kim jong-un. >> after the break, trump triggered for a president who loves to tell people who terrible and low-rated the oscars are, he clearly paid close attention to that broadcast. attention to that broadcast. minimums and fees.

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let's all mobilize. let's all be on the right side of history. make the moral choice between love versus hate! let's do the right thing! >> it took just eight hours, donald trump couldn't help himself. at 6:50 a.m. today he tweeted, quote, it would be nice if spy lee could read his notes or better yet, not have to use notes at all when doing his racist hit on your president, who's done more for african-americans, criminal justice reform, lowest unemployment numbers in history, tax cuts, et cetera, than almost any other president. of course, the sheer irony of that tweet hits you like a punch in the arm. what does it say about trump that he interprets his speech about love and doing the right thing as a racist hit. donna? >> well, thanks so much. black history month. >> how is everything about him? how is everything about race? >> he would take that on is so amazing and also the whole reading of the notes thing,

teleprompter trump is going after spike lee for reading notes? give me a break. the president thinks that everything is about him, and in this case, you know, maybe it was about him. >> but to turn -- he is right now in a bit of a racially tinged scandal and it took him days to say anything and only under persistent questioning from the press corps about someone who targeted -- he is very vulnerable on this front and to project his own insecurities and fears about how he's perceived into someone winning an award and talking about political activism is ridiculous, even for him. >> as my grandmother would always say, a hit dog will holler. when you talk about love and togetherness and peace, he's going to yell because he knows he doesn't represent those things. but also there's diaper levep a level with someone trump is hostile about, he's particularly angry with the new york elites

he used to be able to socialize with, he used to be able to run in the same circles of who now reject him, who now publicly criticize him. he wasn't two degrees of separation from spike lee, they were in the same position in new york. now the same spike lee he might have had drinks at one point or had at his parties is saying he's a terrible person. the president, it's not just his bigotry, it's his vanity that he's no longer one of the cool kid. ? i feel like hollywood sort of shed some of the things that made them tricky surrogates for democrats. there -- i didn't see the whole thing, but jeremy did, he's going to tell me about it. but this was about the positive side of being motivated, do it and just participate. i feel like democrats have sort of gotten hollywood and celebrities and their super surrogates onto a more productive message. >> i'm not sure if it's democrats that got them on a

message. >> or themselves to be more constructive. >> they did. it's hard to argue with what spike lee said, love over hate, mobilize, exercise your vote. do the right thing, be on the right side of history. who's against those things? i guess it's your interpretation. >> trump was. >> and donald trump knows he will be on the wrong side of history and that's why he's taking this personally. he can't help himself but to respond to something like this. maybe there's something, as you were saying in there, he was hoping somebody would talk about him at the oscars and finally it hit. surprised it took eight hours for him to respond. but i do think messages like that using platforms like that to talk about where we need to go as a country is a good thing. and first of all -- and also congratulations to spike lee. >> jeremy, i get in trouble for not knowing pop culture so you and i can get through this together. one question i have for you, as a psychological profile, he care what's people in the media cares

about him. he cares about what hollywood elites say about him. he is so in sort of under the spell of how he is held and how he is perceived by these kinds of people. if fox news was enough for him, he wouldn't send tweets like that. he wouldn't watch the oscars. he wouldn't care about what we say here. >> what fundamentally makes our country strong are not walls and not even negotiations overseas but the fact we are the united states. the fact we actually are together on the core principles that make our country the value-based nation that it is, and the fact we welcome people from all walks of life and they all have a seat at the table of our democracy. that may sound lofty but that's t what the president does not fundamentally understand. >> there are always opportunities, and they definitely admittedly -- god, i know, they fault democrats more than republicans, but there are always opportunities to take something lovely to say i saw "green book" or i saw "star is

born," there are opportunities for president to ride these waves. he's so triggered by it, he can't have those opportunities. >> if you can't come together on oscar night, when can you come together? >> that's why you're such a new on this program by one of our favorite guests who is back today. the outcry over the emergency that wasn't. that is next. outcry over the em that wasn't. that is next when i book at hilton.com i get to select my room from the floor plan... free wi-fi... ...and the price match guarantee. so with hilton there is no catch. yeah the only catch is i'm never leaving. no i'm serious, i live here now.

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20 security and national officials and one of our guest rs today are calling out the national emergency on the southern border saying there is no factual basis for it. and currently serving prokts are being told to vote for the resolution to block trump's declaration. >> there is a premise under lying the declaration that there is a national security crisis at the border. more than 60 officials from both parties across administrations, people experts in counter terrorism took a look at this to look at the evidence, the migration flows, to look at the efforts to solve the border issues that we know exist and these conclusions were that no, there is no national security emergency and this is a fake

emergency. >> you told us this could happen last week. skied a fo i asked a former senior official, and he said it was my job to know where the terrorists were, and there were not on the lawyer. it is the agnnatomy of a lie. >> terrorists are not streaming across the border, but even if they were, even if they were coming in small groups a wall would not stop them. i think congress understands that and they say no, mr. president, a wall is not the answer. >> it is a fake wall and now we know from donald trump that it is a fake emergency. >> it is the best that we could get that is what is going to

happen here. there is 16 states. i don't know if i trust our court system, at the end of the day he is the president of the united states and depending on how much of an originalist he is, they may say the final call is always by the president. i hope they take these experts and say they overrule him and say look, he is trying to over rural congress. the people that went along and kept their mouth shut, now they're worried and i am not calling out any single individual, but it was like what did you think would happen? >> and we have seen this before. one of the most disturbing things is he admitted this would go through the courts and he

predicted he would women in the supreme court. if you're predicting a win in the supreme court what do you know that we don't know for the supreme court to do their job, to look at the record, look at these pieces of evidence whether or not he made a case for a national emergency which is part of the law, which is what he needs to do. he has not followed the law, the supreme court should be making a decision based on the law not a proms promise to trump. oms promise to trump uh uh - i'm the one who delivers the news around here. ♪ liberty mutual has just announced that they can customize your car insurance so that you only pay for what you need. this is phoebe buckley, on location. uh... thanks, phoebe. ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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want a performance car that actually fits your life? introducing the new 2019 ford edge st. capability meets power. in the first suv from the ford performance team. the new 2019 ford edge st my thanks to jeremy, stephanie, jason, dawn. that does it for our hour, nicolle wallace starts right now. >> hi, nicolle we missed you in new york, it's not the same without you. >> if it is monday, what a long strange trip it is about to be. >> goo